


Exceptional Confidant

by conversantMilliner



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Character Study, If this changes later I'll update the tags accordingly, Most of the legends are there but they don't have substantial roles as of yet, Pathfinder is excited to meet the would-be god of that wacky world he found on Halloween!, Revenant just wants a hobby 'til his season rolls around again, Slow Burn, its happening boys!!!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23485159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conversantMilliner/pseuds/conversantMilliner
Summary: Revenant has been signed as a legend and looks forward to the games; he could already hear the screams he would wrench from their throats. (Screams of terror, screams of agony – he's not picky.)When one of them recognizes him, not from the news but from his part-time gig as the shadow world's master of ceremonies, things start to get a little complicated.
Relationships: Pathfinder/Revenant (Apex Legends)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 99





	1. Pathfinder: mom said it's my turn on the unnerving people (revenant)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I love Apex and I want to add onto the revfinder content pile :)

Revenant stalked the carpeted halls of the legends' private building, silent as a ghost. He'd been officially inducted as an Apex Legend half an hour earlier and essentially set loose on the premises. The change of scenery was a catharsis from the restlessness he'd endured for the last three hours. Before the final papers were signed, he had to sit through a digital class covering all aspects of the games: weapons, equipment, environment, and the legends themselves. 

One of the administrative drones tried to give him a holo-pad, should he wish to review before his first game, but another had smacked their arm and jerked his head at Revenant. _He's a machine, you idiot_ , had gone unspoken. 

They had also given him a brief lecture on commercializing himself to maintain the public's interest. They were worried he wouldn't establish a dedicated fanbase – aka a target for merchandising – on account of his disposition. His temperament. His "vibe." 

They'd really gone out of their way to avoid telling him he needed an attitude check to his face.

Revenant had found the conversation humorous, if not presumptuous. The idea of gaining fans was a joke and he chuckled when they told him he couldn't be graphic in the games. _For fear of scaring away fainthearted viewers_. He would find ways around the cameras. On the other hand, they made him out to be some fury-ridden creature that lived and died to kill, and that had irritated him a little. They weren't wrong, but he still had a personality. 

It wasn't his problem that all the skinsuits ever saw was an emotionless metal skull. 

A corporate associate was meant to be his tour guide, but she had doubled back to the administrative wing of the complex to retrieve an access key the lecturing fleshbags had forgotten to give him. He had grown bored of waiting for her and started hunting for a staircase or elevator; whichever came first. His efforts proved fruitless by the time he reached the last hallway, which led to a dead end.

One not as dead as Revenant would have liked. Sounds muddled together to form fragments of conversation. A particularly powerful bellow of laughter resounded from the only room on the left side of the hall. Revenant looked at the distant doorway with mild disdain. Turning around tempted him, but there was little else of note on that level. 

The floor turned to hardwood once he reached the threshold. Most of the legends didn't notice the quiet taps of metal feet that accompanied his muted entrance over their conversations. Revenant paused in the doorway while his frozen gaze raked across the room. It was large and rectangular, outfitted with a kitchen, dining table, and two couches - one in front of an entertainment center, the other a rounded novelty off to the side. Floor-to-ceiling windows made up the wall to his right. There was an elevator sandwiched between the kitchen and table. 

To his distaste, everything but the first couch was populated. 

Revenant took stock of his newest marks. He wondered briefly what it would be like to have his victims recycled. Most of Hammond's employees had felt that way – a monotonous cycle of track, kill, rinse, repeat – but the games would be a different flavor. For one thing, he wouldn't be able to outright rip their skin open with his bare hands. Not like he was used to, anyway, administrative warning or not. Apparently the technology that censored the worst of the gore in real-time for the viewers wouldn't be able to veil a disembowelment. Pity.

He left the thought as the room registered his presence. Revenant recalled their aliases as they noticed him. Wraith and Crypto looked to him almost in unison from their respective corners of the room. Crypto, who sat with his tech at the table extending from the opposite wall, took stock of the simulacrum for a beat and then returned to his drone. Wraith sat at the rounded couch with an exuberant man and a distracted MRVN and didn't shift her focus back to their conversation.

Revenant met her gaze. He even turned his whole head to look at her. She didn't falter and her face betrayed nothing, but she unlaced her fingers and minutely shifted away from the man to her right. Said man – undoubtedly Mirage, if the computer's generous summary was anything to go by – broke his rambling to include her in the conversation a few seconds later, only to be met with a brick wall. After a couple vain attempts to get her attention, Mirage followed her gaze. Bemusement turned to surprise and then settled somewhere between curiosity and unease. The MRVN fiddled with a holo-pad, removed from the shift in atmosphere.

Several seconds passed while Wraith waited for something to happen and Revenant looked back at her with disinterest. In his periphery, the other group in the room was alerted to his presence by a small movement from the stern-looking woman sitting among them. One of their barstools squeaked as they all spun away from their food at the kitchen island to face him.

Revenant looked at them in turn, bored with Wraith. Bangalore, Lifeline, and Gibraltar all sized him up while Wattson looked at him with open curiosity.

It was then that the associate meant to accompany him for a tour trailed into the room. She held an ID card in her left hand and tapped it on Revenant's arm. He restrained himself from flinching back in disgust and instead tensely turned towards her to take it. She addressed the legends while he looked over the card's text and the small portrait of him taken earlier. His name was listed under _Alias_ instead of _Name_ , which had "N/A" in its field.

"Everyone, this is Revenant. He's your newest coworker." Mirage visibly relaxed and Wattson offered him a little wave. "Revenant, this is everyone." She pointedly side-eyed him and said, "Targets only on World's Edge."

 _This one's feeling brave_ , he thought to himself.

Bangalore and Gibraltar exchanged unimpressed looks while a couple others narrowed their eyes. The associate bid them adieu, having watched Revenant comb the entire floor from the security room. She was confident he would figure out the rest of it. Eager to put distance between herself and the ex(?)-assassin, she said something about HR's hours being extended over her shoulder as she left through the hall. 

Key in hand, Revenant met everyone's stares as he crossed the length of the room to the elevator. He wanted to inspect the training grounds below; he was dying to know if they were allowed to practice on each other outside the ring. _Targets only on World's Edge_. Maybe with weapons; hand-to-hand should still be on the table. With his hands, it wouldn't be hard to make a little bloodshed look accidental. Revenant held his card over a scanner and the two buttons lit up. 

Before he made his selection, Bangalore spoke up. Flatly, she asked "You always this quiet?" 

His response was a soft click of the down button.

"Gonna be a drag if cat keeps ya tongue." Lifeline said, returning to her plate. 

If Revenant could roll his eyes, he would have before he turned around. He regarded the women and their companions for a moment. Voice dripping with sincerity, he said, "I look forward to meeting you all... real close and personal."  
  
On the other side of the room, unnoticed by everyone, Pathfinder's screen lit up with an exclamation mark and he looked up from his holo-pad. He leaned to the right to peer around Gibraltar and gasped. The elevator doors opened as he put his holo-pad on the ottoman. He nearly shouted to get Revenant's attention before he left. "Hello again, friend!" 

Revenant glanced over his shoulder, surprised to see he was indeed who the MRVN was addressing. Caught off-guard by the unreserved greeting, he languidly stood half-inside the elevator and turned towards the robot. Just enough to convey waning interest. 

Pathfinder's screen displayed heart eyes as he stood and said, "Say, you're looking much better than the last time I saw you! Much more corporeal." 

Revenant didn't have facial muscles to manipulate into an expression, nor a screen to so brazenly display his emotions. All that betrayed his confusion was a quick twitch of his head towards the kitchen crew, but they were all looking at Pathfinder with varying intensities of _What the hell are you on about?_ The MRVN had to be referring to his shadow form, but when would he have seen it? Revenant was no stranger to leaving witnesses, but Pathfinder's level of familiarity didn't project "witnessed a massacre." 

Pathfinder came to stand in front of him, heart eyes replaced by a simple smiley face, then faltered. He started to extend a hand but aborted the motion a second later; his screen flickered once, but maintained its smile. He folded his hands in front of himself and said pleasantly, "So, how are your shadow minions doing?"

Revenant recoiled a twitch and felt the eyebrows he no longer had raise in surprise. It was his turn to falter; how the hell did this random MRVN know about them? Revenant struggled to come up with a response that wouldn't earn him a one-way ticket out of the games, but he couldn’t get past the idea of throwing Pathfinder against the elevator's back wall and dismantling him until he had the truth.

Pathfinder watched Revenant stand there for a long pause. He shuffled his feet and drummed his fingers over his hand a couple times. Gibraltar was about to ask the whopping _What?_ on everyone's mind, but Pathfinder changed the subject. "Well... I guess you aren't being prosecuted for murdering Forge, being inducted as a legend and all. Congratulations!" 

Now everyone was staring at them; that even got Crypto to look up from his work. His fingers hovered over his laptop mid-keystroke while he looked at them with his equivalent of open-jawed staring. Mirage and Wattson's jaws actually dropped. Wraith froze. Gibraltar and Lifeline seemed dubious of the concept. Bangalore looked impressed.

The audacious comment broke Revenant from his momentary stupor and he acted before the legends could recover from theirs. He hauled Pathfinder into the elevator by the arm with a grunt, prompting an _Oh!_ from the robot. He pressed the close door button at the same time Wraith jumped up to intervene. 

"Relax, skinsuit," he said as the gap narrowed to a close. "We're just catching up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!! 
> 
> (on tumblr @autobotdrift hmu)


	2. there's no dismemberment in sparring, son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revenant learns the truth off-camera, Wraith worries for her friend, and Mirage gets dragged. And some other stuff.
> 
> (+ non-graphic scene of a robot losing his arm via A Tug)

Revenant glanced over the backlit panel. His eyes immediately found the red emergency stop button – a pleasant convenience. He put his thumb over it, then paused as something registered. 

When she ran at them, Wraith had her right arm back, poised to draw. What had it been? He manually reviewed the memory in a decisecond. _There was a sheath on her leg – Ah_. She had intended to impale him. That would have been funny; he was disappointed she sprinted so slowly. 

A few seconds later they were two and a half levels down. He jabbed his thumb into the button and the elevator jerked to a halt. Pathfinder stumbled within a few inches of him. 

Revenant scowled and shoved him away, hard. He bounced off the wall, but Revenant stepped into his space, which kept him there. He spoke roughly. "How do you know about my shadows?"

* * *

Wraith scrutinized the elevator. The white numbers on the screen above it ticked down; _1, L1, L2._ A muffled buzz echoed through the shaft and the screen displayed a red, scrolling message: _EMERGENCY STOP: L3._

 _Great_. She put her ear to the door, but no sound followed.

Wraith turned around to face their resident hacker. "Crypto, can you get into the elevator?"

He nodded, somehow more serious than usual. "Won't take a minute."

Wraith inspected her arm. She had turned on her inter-dimensional bracer after the _Targets only on World's Edge_ comment and it was only at 50%. She leaned against the elevator doors, head turned sharply to their seam. 

Anita swallowed a forkful of linguini. "What's your intel?" 

Crypto answered her. "He did murder Forge. I found the clip a moment before Pathfinder said it. Didn't find anything else, but I'll keep digging after this."

Anita gave him a wry smile. "Thanks, Park, but I was asking Wraith." 

Wraith saw his face fall near-imperceptibly. His monotone lost some of its spark. "Oh."

Wraith's mouth twitched up for a second. "I didn't hear anything. Just don't trust the guy." She glanced at her arm again: 56%. Pulling the doors open and climbing down would be faster. Between all of them, it wouldn't take long. 

Crypto stalled in his typing. Wraith looked at him and watched his eyes flick over the screen. "They change the systems much since the last time you did this?" she said conversationally. 

He gave her a flat look. She didn't know if he had gotten into the cameras before, but it wouldn't surprise her.

Elliot chimed in from the couch. "Could you hack the elevator?"

Crypto didn't stall in his work, but Wraith saw his eye twitch. "I'm already doing that."

"No, I mean the actual elevator."

Crypto exhaled. "It's an elevator." Wraith assumed he could feel Elliot on the verge of saying something else inane. Crypto cut him off before he had the chance. "Do you think they run on wifi? I'm a hacker, not a mechanic." 

Wraith heard Elliot repeat _'I'm a hacker, not a mechanic'_ under his breath in a mocking tone and rolled her eyes.

Crypto clicked on something, then met Wraith's gaze. "I have it, 이리 와봐."

She came around the table and Elliot followed her a second later. She smiled to herself; it was nice to see his playful ire overshadowed by genuine concern for their usual third. The video quality wasn't what you'd expect for the 25th century, but it was clear. Wraith took in the feed and breathed a small sigh of relief; Path was still in one piece. 

The camera was situated in the back corner over Pathfinder's shoulder. He was backed against the wall – his zip line spools were flush with it – but Revenant wasn't in his face. A few seconds passed and Pathfinder began to gesture.

"So," Anita said. "They good down there?"

A full-bodied thumbs up bookended whatever Path had been saying. Elliot glanced up to her. "Yeah, they're fine; seems like they're just talking." He left the sight for the fridge. "There's no audio, and neither of them have mouths, so... only an educated guess, but things seem fine."

Everyone was quiet in the minute that followed. Forks on plates were all that broke the silence.

Gibraltar finished his Alfredo and downed the last of his sweet tea. He turned around to face Crypto. "He really got Forge?"

"Yeah. Unless there's a double running around."

"You're sure?"

"Everything but his legs were in-frame. I'm sure."

Ajay pointed her fork in Crypto's direction. "That's a whole lotta nerve, bringin' him here."

"I'm not worried about it." Anita said from behind her mug. Ajay turned on her. She took a loud sip of her coffee.

"He may'a been too-nuff full of himself, but our new roommate still murdered 'im."

Anita shrugged. "I'm not saying he's safe. I just think we can handle him. We've all earned our way here and our expertise doesn't come and go with the drop ship."

Natalie looked conflicted. "But Forge was going to be one of us. He earned it too." 

"Forge was an arrogant son-of-a-bitch too big for his breeches. Think about it – he would've had an atrocious first season; tripping over his ego thinking he's gonna outplay the entire lobby on his own." She regarded her mug. "He didn't get the chance to have that beat out of him like the rest of us."

Ajay waved her off. "Ya got a point. But if any'a us ends up dead, memba mi tell yu." 

Anita hummed in acknowledgement and finished her coffee. 

"I disagree." Crypto said. They looked over at him. "Witt's not had it beat out of him yet." 

Elliot immediately sputtered. Everyone looked at him with smirks and grins, but Gibraltar outright guffawed. "Hah! He's got you there, brudda!" 

"Wh- I have too! I mean... No. That's p- pr- pre... preposterous!" Elliot was beside himself, for once in the figurative way. His hands seemed to move of their own accord, indignant gestures so impassioned that Wraith almost laughed at him. Natalie did laugh. Gibraltar wiped away a tear. 

Elliot crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, pouty. The room mellowed out and in a moment of respite, his eyes widened. He snapped his head up and pointed at Crypto, scandalized. "Neither have you!" 

Crypto didn't look up from the screen, but a rare grin graced his features. "Heh."

* * *

The elevator opened to a hallway and Pathfinder stepped out, Revenant right behind him.

The story was ludicrous, but as Pathfinder explained what happened to him that day, Revenant was able to connect the dots between his memory and the unlikely tale. Once Revenant decided he believed him, they came to an agreement: never speak of the shadows, their world, nor Halloween in general, around anyone else. He'd made a note to comb the other world next time he went back. Wouldn't want a shadow wandering away; they were fragile enough in their home dimension.

Pathfinder had enthusiastically offered to give him a tour of the training rooms. Revenant had agreed and that prompted a pink, heart-eyed face to replace the yellow smiley. Were the MRVN a skinsuit so adept at broadcasting their emotions, Revenant likely would have impaled him. As it were, he let him play guide.

The building's training grounds were expansive, borders far beyond those of the building above. On the first level, where the elevator stopped, was a huge and well-stocked gym room, showers, and two shooting ranges. One was for short-to-mid range weapons and looked how one would expect it to. The other stretched much farther and had a sharp incline to allow for multi-level targets; a sniper's delight.

Both firing ranges were to the right of the elevator, parallel with each other, while the gym opened to the left. In front of them were floor-to-ceiling polycarbonate panels – bulletproof glass – with darkness beyond them. Revenant knew they were polycarbonate due to the entire face of one being splintered and broken, a defacement which stemmed from a bullet's point of impact. He ran his fingers over the glass to verify which side the damage was on.

Pathfinder paused in his explanation of what he does when hanging out with the legends in the gym. "Anita was doing live ammo exercises with Mirage and Octane. She didn't see his jump pad through her smoke and her shot went very wide."

"Your live training room is lined with glass walls?"

"Oh, no, this is just an observation deck. Do you want to see the second level? It's cool." 

He shrugged. Nothing better to do. Nothing that wouldn't get him kicked out, anyway. "Sure. Why not."

Pathfinder's screen flipped to the heart eyes again. Revenant stared at it and minutely shook his head. "Wonderful! It's just a floor below..."

They took the elevator down. Its descent went on longer than one floor would allot; they must have gone down at least three floors' worth. When the doors slid open, the lights automatically came on and Revenant understood why.

The second level was arena-like in size. It would have been impressive, had it boasted any structure. Blocks of varied sizes, plastic beams, and car-sized mounds of white pellets littered the entire space.

Pathfinder's screen switched to another image. Revenant looked back at him to find a green exclamation point. "Hmm. I guess Mirage forgot to clean up after Anita and Octane left. Let me take care of that."

He fiddled with a panel on the wall while Revenant walked to one of the piles. _His screen makes a little noise any time it changes,_ he noted dully. He crouched down to examine a handful of the white objects. They were simple hexagons, no larger than grains of rice, with a rough texture. He tossed them back and stood. "For this being the home of 'legends,' this room is underwhelming."

A brief electronic melody brought his attention back to Pathfinder, who turned and gave him a thumbs up. "This will only take a minute."

The room came alive around them. The little hexagons started to creep along the floor – some individual, many in their collective mounds – and piled up along the edges of the arena. At the same time, figures suddenly appeared in scattered groups. Featureless mannequins, like crash test dummies, pushed and maneuvered all the boxes and beams towards the furthest wall. 

Something tapped the side of his foot. He looked down at a handful of hexagons and waited for them to go around. Pathfinder stood next to him. "Isn't this room neat?"

Revenant didn't look up. He figured the MRVN would continue regardless. The hexagons weren't going around.

"We can make it look like pretty much anything in here. The stuff the dummies moved are all foundation pieces for the Canvas Golems to build on." 

Revenant shifted the angle of his foot, a mercy for the apparent golems in the face of their failed efforts. They began to go around. 

"Then they change colors to look like something and voilà!" Pathfinder's arms did an impassioned gesture to go with the word, then hung in the air. Revenant looked up after a couple seconds of this. "I think I used that right." His arms dropped suddenly. "Natalie taught me that! It's French."

The melody from earlier played again; a signal for the cleanup's completion. Revenant watched the dummies wave at them and blink out of existence. 

Pathfinder waved back, then laced his fingers together. He glanced at Revenant, then back to the tidy chamber. Revenant turned his head enough to watch him from the corner of his eye. Pathfinder ever so slightly rocked on his feet. He looked at Revenant again, lingered for a couple seconds, then faced the room.

What kind of reaction did he expect to glean from all of that? The technology wasn't that impressive. Pathfinder looked between him and the room again. Revenant wanted to roll his eyes. "What -"

"Do you want to spar?" He blurted out. 

Revenant turned his head to look at him, surprised. 

Pathfinder practically bounced. His smiley face glitched, interrupted by a few pink lines, then corrected itself. "Or train. Training would be fun too. I don't care."

He felt his brows raise and he hated that. "Are you asking to fight me?" 

Pathfinder's screen glitched out again, but instead of the smiley, heart eyes took over. Revenant resolved to expect the effusive response. "Yes! Can we? The other legends never want to train with me. Unless we're in the games, but then it's just normal fighting."

Revenant huffed, humored, and faced him fully. "Color me shocked. Tell me you make up for lost time in the arena."

"I think the enemies prefer when I don't run out of ammo." He said happily. 

Revenant chuckled. "Good. I'd like to see you cut the skinsuits down some time."

Pathfinder's screen was a green exclamation point. "Once we're on a squad together, sure! But I can't cut anyone. Punching is more my style." A smiley face punctuated the statement and he posed in mock fisticuffs.

Revenant looked between Pathfinder's blocky fists and his own thinner digits. It wasn't as odd to look down and see their metal sheen anymore. "Mmmm... all the more for me, then." He dropped his hands and gave Pathfinder a once-over. "Are you going to do anything special with the room or are you ready to lose?"

"Am I ready to – Oh! You do want to spar?" Revenant nodded and the heart eyes returned in force. "Great! I think the room is fine like this." He walked away from the wall and Revenant lagged behind him. Pathfinder stopped a few moments later and put a hand on his hip, the other held where one would have a chin. He turned around. "There aren't losers in sparring."

Revenant flexed his fingers. "There will be."

Pathfinder looked down at Revenant's hands, then back to his face. "Well ok! Get ready to lose, friend." He backed away a few paces and fiddled with his left arm. He nodded once. He locked onto Revenant and took a boxer's stance. "I promise to fight clean."

"You do that." Revenant moved first, but Pathfinder blocked his jab. 

Revenant tried to shove his arms out of the way; slammed against them with his own, but to little avail. Where flesh would have recoiled from the pain, Pathfinder merely flinched. Alas, likely more from the echoing _CLANG_ s than the feeling. A bummer.

At some point his screen consistently displayed a furious red face, but it flickered back to his yellow smiley with each successful parry. Revenant continued to brute force his way into Pathfinder's space, but Pathfinder blocked the worst of his blows. The MRVN tried to return the jabs, but his fists merely brushed Revenant's pouches. 

"I can take these off if they're confusing you." He jived.

Pathfinder's screen stayed decidedly angry as he retaliated. He landed several blows, but their effects were rendered moot as Revenant backed away from each one. "Those probably would have hurt if I was a skin suit. You'll have to try harder than that." 

"Okay." Pathfinder parried Revenant's next grab, but instead of bouncing further out of his reach, he cleared the distance between them. Revenant was poised to block him, but Pathfinder threaded the needle and connected an uppercut to the base of his chest.

His feet left the ground for a split second and he stumbled, but he did not fall. A physical, pained tightness splintered from where he was hit. Revenant continued to feel the horrendously loud _clang_ of metal on metal reverberate through his chest even after he righted himself. 

Pathfinder had straightened, a smile on his screen. He clapped his hands together. "How was that, friend?"

In lieu of an answer, Revenant lunged at him.

A few minutes into their more aggressive sparring, he had to acknowledge that Pathfinder put up a strong defense. His counters weren't bad either. Revenant wanted to push him, really find out if he was worth his salt in a fight, but he didn't want to risk his admission so early if Pathfinder proved a disappointment. 

Then the choice was made for him.

Pathfinder knocked Revenant away with a full-arm shove and, for the first time, a loud electronic warble prefaced his angry screen. Pathfinder straightened his arm and fired his grapple right at Revenant. 

Revenant had no anticipation for the attack and didn't move fast enough; it latched around his throat and he was yanked forward. The sheer audacity caught him so off guard, he almost didn't duck under the followup right cross. 

A minute later Revenant had Pathfinder pinned on his side as he tried to tear his arm off.

Pathfinder put more energy into telling him off for poor sportsmanship than he did his struggle to escape. 

Pathfinder's grapple-less arm was stuck under his body. Revenant had his other wrist in a vise-grip so he couldn't be shoved off. He locked his free hand's digits together with a _shink_ and buried it in Pathfinder's shoulder apparatus. 

His systems beeped in alarm. It wasn't the howl of agony Revenant would have desired from a skin bag, but it was something. "You are doing a really mediocre job at honorable combat! I think." Revenant let him ramble. "I overheard Bloodhound talking about it one day, but they had to go do something right after I walked into the room."

The mechanisms inside clicked repeatedly as they failed to move the limb. Revenant relaxed his fingers to clamp around whatever part was in his palm and braced his other hand on the yellow bar above the joint. 

"Anyhow, this is not how you spar, friend! We don't wear pants but this is still below the belt." 

For whatever nonsensical reason, Revenant found that comment funny. He would have snickered, but Pathfinder's lack of tortured writhing waned his mood. He bent forward, inches away from his optic, and spoke in a low, breathy voice. Like he was sharing a secret. "You've been doing it wrong." He adjusted his grip in the extra space he'd created and wrenched his hand back. Pathfinder's arm ripped away with a screech of tearing metal and crackles of disturbed electrical currents. 

Revenant leaned back and regarded it. It was still attached by the grapple cord laced on his back, but that had gone slack too. 

"No, I'm sure this falls outside clean sparring conduct." Revenant looked down at him. Pathfinder's head was bent at a hard angle to look at the disturbed wiring, torn insulation, and warped metal anchor that jutted from his torso. He tried to free his other arm. Revenant allowed it; he let go of the bar and shifted his weight to sit on Pathfinder's middle. He slouched forward; hoped the MRVN's programming was laggy and that further disturbing it would kickstart a reaction. 

Pathfinder poked at the wires. They made arcs of electricity with his fingers and he flinched. Revenant saw the light cast from his screen change to blue. "I've never seen any of my friends try to tear each other's arms out of their sockets." He said, pensive. 

"The rules change when you're not a mound of soft goop stacked in a skin suit." Pathfinder seemed to consider that. He looked up at him as Revenant straightened and tossed his arm away. It landed with a _clunk_. "And we aren't friends." 

Pathfinder moved his wrist to point at Revenant's head. "Your hood is crooked." 

Revenant checked and sure enough, one side was skewed too far forward. He grunted and fixed it. "And whose fault was that?" 

"If you didn't try to move out of the way, it wouldn't have happened. I have great aim."

Revenant pinched one of the exposed wires and yanked it out. Pathfinder's head moved in surprise and he banged his fist on Revenant's thigh. 

Revenant didn't look up from the sparking joint for a moment. He glanced at Pathfinder's head. "None of that hurt you, did it."

"Nope! It feels weird, but I wouldn't say it hurts." Revenant sighed in disappointment. "It is a relief, I agree!"

"Is a village missing its idiot, or are all MRVNs like you?"

"Not at all! I'm very different from those guys."

He spoke with pride. Revenant was a breath away from snapping his neck for being so dense.

"Hey!"

A woman's voice. Revenant turned his head towards the elevator. Wraith sprinted out of it and Bangalore jogged a step behind her. Pathfinder startled below him. _Would his neck even snap?_

"Oh, hi friends!" His tone was confident, but he spoke stiffly. "I know what you're thinking, but this isn't what it looks like. No need for alarm." _It would probably just twist._

Both women ignored him. "What the hell is this?" Wraith demanded, hands balled into fists.

"We're sparring!" Pathfinder said happily.

They glared at Revenant, who still straddled Pathfinder's side. He stared back. "You heard him."

Bangalore looked ready to drag him off. He wanted her to try. "This isn't sparring, it's an assault."

Pathfinder tried to assure them. "It's okay, Anita. We're robots so it's different." He withered under the look she gave him. 

Wraith said it out loud. "That doesn't make it different, Path." 

Revenant spoke airily. "You're telling me you never watched Evangelion? This is the standard." He said, faux scandalized.

Wraith opened her mouth, didn't say anything, then closed it again. She swallowed. Her expression was conflicted; anger caught off guard with confusion. ' _You know what that is?_ ' it said.

Revenant was a little impressed. Just for that, and because they ruined his fun anyway, he raised a hand in surrender. "You can call off the dogs; we were just finishing up." Revenant used Pathfinder's torso as a counter-balance as he stood, unhurried. "Warm bodies are more fun for me anyway." 

Wraith settled on anger as he stepped back. Pathfinder struggled to sit up, so she moved to help him. His screen wore a sad expression. "Aw. Well, I had fun! We should do it again some time!" Bangalore looked down at him like he'd grown a second head.

Revenant chuckled and turned to leave. He made sure they could hear the smirk in his voice. "If you're offering yourself up for dismantlement, don't wait for an invitation. I'm sure you'll figure out where my room is."

Unexpectedly, Crypto stood in the elevator doorway. He projected an aloof air, but his closed laptop was clutched over his abdomen. Like it would protect him. He quickly stepped out of the way before Revenant was within arm's reach. 

Everyone watched him as he left. Before he was gone, Pathfinder called out, "Thank you for the fun fight! Next time I'll do really good."

Revenant smiled to himself as the doors slid shut.

_Maybe life between the games won't be so listless after all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mirage: YOU THREWYWA WYHA WYAHWH AHWY sHaDE in my VALENTINO WHITE BAG?!
> 
> 2x as long as chapter one! The plot thickens in our next chapter, but you'll likely be waiting around a month for it like this one here. College carries on mon amis :p
> 
> (on tumblr @autobotdrift)


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